Talking of his experience with fluid and condition monitoring service, Steve Simmons, managing director of Sinbad Plant Hire commented that: "The sampling service acts as a great reassurance and enables us to run our oils twice as long as that recommended by the manufacturer.
"We have been using the sampling service for around five years now and as a specialist plant hirer with a small fleet of high-end equipment, we can’t afford for any of our pieces of plant to be out of service for long periods of time.
"From a recent set of results, provided by the laboratory, we were informed that an amount of copper was found in the engine oil of our Cat M313C. With the issue in the front of the engine, we didn’t want to run the risk of causing unnecessary downtime. As the machine was still under warranty we were able to get a fitter along to the site; he stripped the engine down, repaired it and got the machine back up and running, efficiently and effectively.
"As we were able to do this at our onsite workshop, we could schedule it in at our convenience and ensure that the machine didn’t fail whilst on a customer site. It is this kind of experience that makes the fluid sampling service so worthwhile.
"By coupling the technology of modern oils with the diagnostics of fluid analysis I am able to make my hydraulic oil, in particular, run for maybe 4,000 hours rather than the recommended 1,000. By using the right filters and keeping an eye on the analysis I am able to clean up the oil with new filters before any anomalies or contaminants fail the system. With each filter change I can make the hydraulic oil last about another 1,000 hours.
"With this kind of longevity I am not only saving money for both myself and the customer but also aiding in the reduction of waste oil – a big part of our environmental programme."